a) Field of the Invention
The invention is directed to a program-controlled microscope with a control program internal to the microscope and means for hard-wired or wireless connection to an external control device serving to execute microscope functions, and to a method for external control of microscopes.
b) Description of the Related Art
Modern microscopes are presently firmware-controlled products which contain one or more internal microprocessors for controlling their components. The initialization program of these internal microprocessors is stored as firmware usually on an EPROM, and variable data required for the program are held in a RAM.
In order to execute specific microscope functions, subroutines contained in the firmware are activated. This is frequently carried out by means of an external control device such as a personal computer which is connected to the microscope by a serial data line and on which suitable control software is installed for executing commands directed to the firmware. Within the framework of the control of the microscope, the control software interrogates status, reads out and documents data sets, and records and processes images, as well as performing other control tasks.
The object of the control software can also be to subject the microscope components to a system calibration or to determine configuration data for the microscope or its accessories, whereupon the determined calibration data or configuration data (e.g., exact magnification, phase shifter calibration, calibration data for deconvolution) are stored on the control device (PC) on which the control software is also installed.
This has the disadvantage that a new calibration must be carried out whenever the control device is changed, since the data on the other control device are no longer available unless they are generated anew or copied.